Cold was always the first thing Lukas remembered.
The icy embrace of the stones beneath his back when he awoke, abandoned in a rotting wooden crate at the gates of the Slaughterhouse in the Southern District. The biting wind that whistled through the broken roofs of the shacks where he crawled, searching for scraps. The shiver that ran through his body every time his little sister, Elara, trembled against his chest on the cruelest nights.
But he also remembered warmth.
The weak fire he managed to kindle with damp wood, blowing until the flames licked his bruised fingers. The weight of Elara sleeping in his lap, her steady breathing the only sound that mattered in that hell of screams and knife fights. The way his power—that damned light inside him—pulsed when she smiled, as if for just a second, the underworld wasn't so miserable.
"Lukas, I'm hungry," Elara murmured one gray morning, tugging at his torn sleeve.
She was four. He was five. And he already knew how to steal without getting caught.
"Wait here," he told her, hiding her among the empty barrels behind The Bloody Crow Tavern.
His small body moved through the shadows, avoiding gazes. People's souls shimmered before his eyes, though he didn't understand why: the tavern keeper had a sickly green aura; a prostitute had silver glimmers that faded every time she coughed blood. But when he saw the cook handing out stale bread, his heart raced. The man's soul was black as coal.
It didn't matter. Lukas grabbed two pieces of bread and ran.
"Thieving little shit!" a voice roared.
A blow sent him face-first into the mud. Another split his lip. But when the cook raised his knife, something inside Lukas erupted.
A golden flash.
The man recoiled as if burned.
"He's one of them!" the cook spat, genuine fear in his eyes.
Lukas didn't understand. He only knew he now had bread for Elara.
The cook had him by the collar, his thick fingers tightening like a noose. The stolen bread lay trampled in the mud.
"This little devil's got something strange about him!" the man bellowed, shaking Lukas like a rag. "Look at his eyes! They glow like those damned saints!"
Lukas struggled, but at five years old, he was no match for the grease-stained giant. The stench of sour ale and rancid sweat filled his nose. Around them, the dregs of the underworld gathered, their gray and black souls buzzing with morbid curiosity.
"Burn him!" a woman shrieked. "The last one who glowed like that brought the plague!"
"He's just a brat!" another argued, though his voice held more doubt than conviction.
Then, a sudden silence cut through the air like a knife.
Trumpets.
All heads turned toward the alley's end, where a procession of white-and-gold-clad figures advanced. At its center, a man in a silver mitre: Cardinal Valtor, the High Pontiff's personal envoy. His embroidered mantle swept over the filth as if misery were beneath his touch.
The cook paled and released Lukas at once.
"Your Eminence, this boy—"
The Cardinal ignored him. His steel-cold eyes locked onto Lukas. And then, the boy saw.
The Cardinal's soul was black.
Not the dull black of drunks or thieves. No. It was a void that devoured light, a bottomless pit where something writhed. Something… unnatural.
"The child comes with us," the Cardinal declared, his voice brooking no argument.
But when Lukas instinctively recoiled, a noble in white stepped forward.
"His Holiness has had a vision. This boy is blessed by sacred fire."
The Cardinal extended a gloved hand. On his palm, a medallion bearing the Church's symbol flared with golden light—the same hue as Lukas's power.
"Confirm it, Your Eminence," the noble urged.
The Cardinal pressed two fingers to Lukas's forehead. A searing pain shot through his skull, like needles of light stabbing into him. The medallion erupted in white flames, illuminating the entire alley.
The crowd gasped. Some fell to their knees.
"It is true," the Cardinal murmured, though his voice sounded… strained.
And then, Lukas saw it.
For just an instant—a blink—the Cardinal looked back, seeking shelter behind one of his guards. As if he were afraid.
Afraid… of him?
"House Duvont will raise him," the Cardinal announced, regaining his composure. "The High Pontiff has decreed it."
But Lukas was no longer listening. His eyes were fixed on the guard the Cardinal had hidden behind.
Because that guard…
Had no soul.